Objective To investigate a method to detect the sentinel lymph nodes(SN) of thyroid papillary carcinoma and its predictive value for cervical metastasis of carcinoma. Methods Intraoperative methylene blue dye mapping was performed in 24 cases of thyroid papillary carcinoma. The coincidence rate of frozen section pathology and routine section pathology of SN was observed,and the predictive value of SN for (metastasis) of the cervical lymph nodes was noted. Results SN was successfully detected in 21(87.5%) of 24 cases. The average number of SN was 3 nodes. There was one false negative case, the false negative rate was 4.8%(1/24), and no false positive cases were found. The predictive value of sentinel lymph nodes to (cervical) lymph node metastasis was 83.3%.Conclusions Methylene blue staining to identify sentinel lymph nodes could accurately predict the status of cervical lymph node metastasis of thyroid papillary carcinoma.